Searching for the Essential Simplicity that underlies all complex subjects. Of my 168 posts (listed in 'Blog Archive') the currently most popular are automatically listed in the right hand column. Total Reads (To date: 46,819 hits)

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Piano Trio no.4in E Minor, ('Dumky') —— Antonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904)

A 'dumky', according to Wikipedia, is a "Slavic (specifically Ukrainian) epic ballad … generally thoughtful or melancholic in character." It traditionally alternates cheerful with melancholic moods, and its importance in music is that it is notsonata-form. Dvořák wrote several dumky movements but in this work each of its 6 sections is a 'dumky'. The first 3 sections (in the related keys of E, C♯, A) run together forming a complex first movement; the last 3 sections are in the less related keys of D, E♭ and C respectively. In 1891, at the age of 50, Dvořák was already an international celebrity with his Stabat Mater, his violin concerto, 3 of his 4 trios, 5 of his 8 quartets, and 8 of his 9 symphonies behind him; but his three greatest and best loved works were still to come — the American quartet ('93), the New World symphony ('93), and the cello concerto ('94). He composed this piano trio in 1891 and, at its premier in Prague, he himself played the piano part. It was a great success and, before Dvořák left in 1892 to take up a 3-year appointment at the conservatory in New York, the trio was played all over his homeland in a 40 concert tour.

The terrible, 3-year-long, siege of Leningrad began in early 1941 while Shostakovich was teaching at the conservatory there. He volunteered for action, but was rejected because of his short-sightedness. He contributed, however, by making speeches and composing. By Christmas '41, after all birds, rats and pets had been eaten, there were reports of cannibalism, and those who could do so escaped, including the Shostakovich family. In May '42 the score of his heroic 7th symphony was smuggled back into the city across German lines and on 9th August the symphony was played by the skeletal Radio orchestra of Leningrad (augmented by anyone who could play an instrument) and broadcast on loudspeakers throughout the city and out towards the German lines. That date marks the turning point of the siege which nevertheless lasted till January 1944. Shostakovich (aged 38) then started work on his 2nd piano trio which was premiered in Leningrad 10 months after the lifting of the siege. The first half of the Andante is rather desolate, on muted strings, but gathers energy, which is the 'keynote' of the 2nd movement. In the last movement plaintive Klezmer melodies alternate with anger (hypnotic and obsessively repetitive), till a degree of resolution is achieved in the last dozen bars. There is no doubt that Shostakovich's eventual response to the war was not heroic, but deeply negative. Jewish melodies (as in the last movement) are a recurrent theme in this as in much of Shostakovich's post war work but his pro-semitism was purely sympathetic; his close friend, the Jewish polymath Sollertinsky, to whose memory the work is dedicated, died February 1944.

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Piano Trio no.1 in B flat major D898———Schubert (1770 - 1827)

It has been said "No chamber work by Schubert is more popular than the B flat major Trio". Commenced in 1827, completed in 1828, the last year of Schubert's life, it nevertheless carries no traces of the anguish that appears in "Der Winterreise" and the string quintet. Schubert always had devoted admirers but little public fame. However, in 1827 he was brought to Beethoven's deathbed and (if the story is correct) received praise. In that year also he began to be approached by publishers, and was finally acknowledged by the Musikverein of Vienna.

The first movement has several captivating themes which rotate. As the movement unfolds you think you have heard this tune before; and you have of course, but in a subtly different key. The only sombre touch is towards the end where there is a bar of complete silence; the effect is astonishing, as though a gap in the continuum of time momentarily opens, to reveal…... The Andante is a perfect example of Schubert's counterpoint — three voices each saying entirely different things yet completely agreeing, and never obscuring each other. The scherzo is rhythmic rather than tuneful, but has a softer and more melodic trio section. The finale is a rondo, with tune after tune chasing each other as in the first movement, though rhythmically it is more like the scherzo. The tremolo sections are spooky but not sinister. The Schubertian key-changes are again a little spooky as you shoot suddenly off into a parallel universe. Throughout the trio the piano balances the strings perfectly; in the first movement mostly giving us three voices, but in the Rondo more often two voices with the strings doubling each other in octaves like the piano.

Deficit-Funded Growth

Regarding the importance of deficit-funded growth, John Lanchester (London Review of Books, 8th Sept 2011)finds that electors in developed Western democracies, and the majority of their politicians, fail to grasp the important point that national finances differ from domestic finances. "The problem is" (he writes) "in large part to do with the application of an incorrect metaphor, the easy-to-understand idea that a household has to live within its income. But Governments are not households, and the idea of cutting your way to prosperity cannot be read across from an individual's finances to those of the state. It is a manifest fact that these policies, and the refusal to embrace stimulus spending, are causing economic slowdowns all over the world...."

We can agree (of course) that governments are not households; but what are the differences that makes the metaphor invalid? Neither a household nor a government can "cut its way to prosperity", they can only cut their way to balancing income and expenditure. One crucial difference is the effect of "the multiplier". A household can live very well on 90% of its previous expenditure. Lower household spending will tend to lower consumer prices and the 10% cut in spending will have a less-than-10% effect on standard of living. With governments it is different. A large fraction of government spending goes on wages, and therefore straight into the pockets of domestic consumers, and from there (by the multiplier effect) into the pockets of domestic and foreign producers. An ill-considered cut in government spending will cut demand out of the economy; business will languish; by this multiplier effect, a 1%cut may take 2% out of gross domestic production, and therefore 2% out of tax revenues. The deficit is not decreased; it is increased! Cuts in public spending should be made very carefully. Perhaps benefits could be cut without fiscal loss, if that forced recipients to work; though not without hardship. Or NHS spending on medicines, but not on salaries. 'Surgical' cuts!

Another crucial difference is that governments can, at the stroke of a pen, increase their income — by raising tax revenue. But again they should be cautious; money taken out of the pockets of the average household will lower demand and thus (by the multiplier) lower GDP and the global tax take. However, I cannot see that taxing financial transactions would do any harm; they are entirely valueless to the real economy. Nor taxing large incomes, for they are not spent anyway. Nor blocking tax loop-holes; Mitt Romney made a big contribution in Massachusetts by closing tax loopholes to businesses. And above all, large accumulations of wealth should be taxed, by death duties or inheritance taxes.

Table 1 — Interest rates paid on sovereign debt by different countries in recent years.

2000

2005

2010

Greece

7%

4.5%

6%

USA

3.5%

2.7%

3.0%

UK

2.7%

Japan

0.2%

0.1%

0.5%

In the short term, governments (like households) can borrow money to bridge the deficit. When interest rates are low, as at present (See Table 1), there is little incentive to pay the borrowed money back. Japan has an enormous government debt, but a miniscule rate of interest (perhaps because the debt is held by Japanese citizens and businesses). Depending on the bond, or 'gilt', issued (5 year gilts, 10 year, etc.), the debt becomes due for repayment in a rolling manner, and is usually paid back by simply taking out another loan. But, what if interest rates are then higher? There is little to no chance of the British Government defaulting on its (our) debt. We never have in 250 years. For debts in Sterling we can always repay the debt by printing money. However, the consequent inflation would raise interest rates just as surely as a perceived risk of default. A government would be mad to borrow simply to sustain its deficit (its hypertrophied civil service, National Health Service, or army). Except (you may ask) in the very short term? Yes (I would answer), even then.

John Lanchester talks sardonically of the "non-scenic route" to where we are going, meaning I suppose the one that involves a decade of tightened belts. But is there an alternative? Which is his "scenic route"? Surely he is not advocating increased borrowing in the hope of increasing GDP? In my analysis we have lived in a bubble of borrowed money for a decade and there is no way back to that level of prosperity. We never did have that level of GDP, for it was not wealth that we produced. To borrow more money now to "stimulate growth", is like a bankrupt borrowing money to bet on the horses; there is little chance that it will do anything other than increase the country's indebtedness.To borrow money from the open market seems to be equivalent to stretching oneself over a barrel and inviting punishment.

Classic Keynsianism may now be out of date. The crucial question in regard to government borrowing is the question of where the money is coming from; who holds the debt. If it is internal, interest rates may be low; if it is external, interest rates will rise with inflation and the country is in hoc to the international money-markets. Talk of 'growing the economy' raises questions of where the increased GDP is going to come from. Are we going to under-cut the Chinese and make our own telephones? Real growth in a global sense can only come from an increase in efficiency. It is a slow process.

As far as I can see our only way to fiscal balance is a mixture of 'surgical' cuts and judicious realignment of government spending, together with carefully controlled increases in overall taxation (e.g. capital gains, death duties, and stock market and banking activities). To this might be added a tiny amount of focused devaluation ('quantitative easing)'?

About Me

My Cawstein profile shows me struggling to understand politics, economics, and occasionally philosophy, commenting on the misuse of the English language and other perceived follies gaining currency in our times

Of course, this Cawstein only emerged when the web itself emerged. Before that there was neither the means of developing these characteristic ideas, nor the time. I suffered as a child the constraint of having to go to school. Then there were 45 years of disciplined application to a career in academic biochemistry (where my contributions lay in bioenergetics and membrane transport, chiefly in bacteria and mitochondria).